Putting the 'social' into social media. Sorta kinda.

Wednesday, 13 January 2010

The first '21 Days to Make/Break a Habit' is over. How did I do? Am quite proud to say I PASSED!! My goal was to forego Coke (as in soda) before noon for 21 days straight. It was hard at first, really hard. I love Coke! By starting the day with an icy cold Coke, my stomach was soothed and helped get my day off to a happy (albeit totally unhealthy) start.

It was hard making the transition once I started back to work after a 4 day vacay. I'd become so ingrained in stopping by Starbucks for my Venti glass of ice, dumping a brought-from-home Coke into the ice and getting my day off to a caffeinated start. Each day I told myself 'just do it for this one day'. Then I said it again and again until I stopped thinking about what not to have (a ha moment right there) and thought about what I COULD have.

Lately, I'd been waiting longer and longer to have my one Coke of the day and realized that there were days when I went without Coke...sorta forgot all about it, if you can believe that. I still can't!

As soon as I woke up Wednesday morning, I had the feeling I was close to my goal. Sure was....close as in THERE! I was finished. And it felt pretty good to know that I'd played mindgames with myself (for the good of my health) and won! Yay me!

So what is the end result? Do I feel healthier? Yeah, I guess. Wound up drinking lots more juice, milk and water than I was used to. Switched from full-size Coke cans to the mini-100 calorie cans. And best of all, didn't get ONE single migraine from foregoing Coke. Maybe cause I stayed super-hydrated? It's a possibility.

The only downside...if you want to call it that...way more frequent bathroom breaks. For me, drinking water or juice is like drinking beer...you don't drink it...you rent it! That took some getting used to.

All in all, I'm glad I did it. What did you do for your 21 Day Habit? I'm all ears!

Finally, I've picked out my 2nd Habit. This one's a Make.

To track my finances diligently, work up a financial plan, and in general clean up my financial foundation over the next 21 days. Splurged on a Financial Tracker tonite (it's functional AND stylish - double win!) and I can't wait to write in it and get that very important part of my life to a more controlled place.

Any tips, links, habits you've developed that you've found helpful, please do share!

Saturday, 02 January 2010

Back in the day when I lost 85 pounds, what helped me succeed was breaking old habits and making new ones. I'd often heard the saying "21 days to make/break a habit" so decided to give it a try. What do you know, it worked. At least for me.

One of my habits that needed breaking was starting my day with a Venti glass of ice from Starbucks combined with a can of Coke. Granted, I usually didn't drink the whole thing but still...it always bothered me cause I knew it wasn't the healthiest way to start my day. I'd tried various juices before but none of them were satisfying and left me feeling hungrier than if I'd had nothing to eat. Tried water too, but water on an empty stomach first thing in the morning? Yuck :-( (I'm not a coffee drinker - loathe the stuff - and not really a fan of tea save for the 2 cups of tea I had at the Boulder Tea House one night last summer).

While on vacation in California I stayed at my brother's house, where the only beverages in stock were water, orange juice and beer. I gave up beer for breakfast after college, I've already stated how I feel about water first thing in the morning, and while I used to LOVE OJ, after being diagnosed with GERD I stopped consuming citrus-based juices on the advice of my doctor. (Unless they were mixed with vodka and consumed on a summery evening. For the most part tho, I stayed citrus-free).

Hmmm.

Seeing as my GERD had practically dissapeared since getting a divorce & moving to CO, decided to take a walk on the wild side and give OJ a try again. Guess what? No side effects. YIPPEE!

So I switched to juice as my preferred morning beverage and added water later in the day. Same routine once I moved over to my parent's house, with milk substituted as another option. When I returned to CO post vacation and realized I'd not only had soda-free mornings since Dec 24, but my soda consumption in general had plummeted, decided this was a perfect jump-start to practice the 21 Day Habit theory.

That got me to thinking about what habits I wanted to break & what habits were worth making for the rest of this year and how they could relate to the birthday resolutions I'd set for myself.

Hence 373 days (starting Dec 24) divided by 21 (the number of days you must consecutively do something to ingrain the habit into your lifestyle) = 17.76 total habits over the course of a year and a week.

SO!! A new goal...not to mention a new blog post!

This excited me for several reasons!! I love to plan. I love to have goals. I love ways to measure results. And I love to correct areas that I feel need correcting. (hey. it's the little things!!) :-)

I'll be making a list of my 17.76 habits to make or break and invite you to do the same. Mileage may vary depending on when you start, but if you started today, working on one habit every 21 days, you could accomplish 17.33 habits made/broken by the end of the year.

Breaking out a new category for this topic and every 21 days I'll post results...and if the habit stuck or not.

OK, off to have a glass of juice and get my day off to a healthy start :-)